Inflation rose more than expected, up 6.4% from a year ago

But there are good reasons for CPI to measure all leases and not just new leases. It depends on what your goal is of your measurement. If your goal is to measure the prices of a basket of goods representative of what urban consumers are spending money on, then measuring the prices of all leases is better than new leases.

I would agree that a good forecast of inflation would incorporate what is happening with leases now, but I would disagree that this means anything for "true inflation".

I sure hope that makes its way to real rents by the time it’s time to renew. I’d love to hardball for the first time in 10 years and demand a lower rent instead of it slowly and sometimes fastly creeping up every year

Don't forget that even if inflation comes back to 2%, that's still only a rate of change. Prices continue to rise, just more slowly.

The prices that we have today, that so many already can't afford, aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

We are talking abt decision makers that effectively label having a health job market as a problem.

Jobs = bad

Says the same clowns who printed in excess of 40% of all dollars in existence within the last few years.

All that liquidity is still in their hands today, but those being punished are the poor folks who did nothing wrong.

Why kind of statement is this? Of course it's "some kind of victory" because it's better than it was before. No one is saying it's over, but the expectation is that once the trend goes downward, then we've broken the back of the problem and further tightening will likely cause us to overshoot. There is no possible way to make inflation drop from 8 to 2 in a month unless you trigger massively deflation in 6 months. The current data says the rudder is in the right position and we just have to wait for the ship to come about.

The fed? They were the ones that initiated the largest QE spree of all time so that their friends and masters don't lose their fortunes in an unexpected recession.

The very same recession they are now trying to cause to get inflation under control, just that now there is way more debt and the recession will be much worse. As a side benefit this recession is expected so the oligarchs can go into cash and buy everything up for 30% less.

edit: I shouldn't talk, my central bank is the ECB which is much worse and much slower. We're just lucky the fed is the world's central bank so we benefit from their actions a little.

6.4% is the "headline" number. Some of the statistics that go into the inflation calculation are often manipulated [1].

Likely, the realistic number is much higher and has been for a while. Anecdotally, people only care about the incremental direction of their quality of life - is it going up or going down? The trend for that speaks for itself.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hedonicpricing.asp

It might be that at this point the solution to inflation is to let things settle and get more efficient after the significant disruptions we’ve seen.

The fed has been saying for a year that they aren’t stopping until at least 5.25% rates, the market is priced with that as a target.

Neither are correct. Inflation is a year-over-year metric. Prices now are 6.4% higher than they were in January of 2022. Prices then were 7.5% higher than they were in January of 2021.

In general it's not very informative to talk about a change in the derivative ("inflation rose"). But if you did, you'd have to talk about an immediate delta and not a YoY. So in fact, the headline is simply incorrect. CPI inflation was 6.5% in December. So in fact "inflation is dropping".

But that doesn't get clicks.

Record profits are stolen wages

Nope

No, those usually lag behind

No, instead they’re doubling down on layoff vibes to keep everyone in check

How many employees have leverage right now to jump ship? Theres a direct connection there. Cost of living is different than cost of employing.

If anything, cost of employing is going down in tech, going up in the service industry

no we are getting layoff, anyone who thought they were to be promoted is oppressed to feel "lucky" if they don't get redundancy.

My employer did one across the board COLA, yes.

Wages increased 5.1 percent for the 12 month period ending in December 2022, so I'd say it's normal to receive a cost-of-living adjustment.

Engineers don't always get these, as their pay isn't based on the living cost, but on the market value of their skills.

Workers on the minimum wage should typically get cost-of-living adjustments, because they get a wage and not a real salary.

This is why this is called the minimum wage. They don't get money based on their contribution to the company, but just the amount of money to cover costs, and to be able to show up at work and be healthy the next day. So their wage should increase with inflation.

In some country, the minimum wage is calculated on the minimum amount of money that anyone should spend to keep the economy running. It's a bit more than the amount to still be alive the next day, but the same logic and the adjustment would still apply.

Engineers (which seem to make the bulk of the reader in HN) are usually paid on a market value basis. You negotiate your salary based on your skills, not the price of commodities ! (You can't reasonably complain to HR about the rising price of eggs when you get more than twice the minimum wage).

If you want a raise, get better skills and a better job ! Because you can afford that car even with the inflation. If your market value changes, your salary will also change.

But there is no direct link with inflation.

For example, inflation soars, but layoffs are happening in Cali, so salaries don't go stonk.

EDIT : check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#Economic_models ! In a liberal perspective (with supply and demand and stuff. I don't like it, but it's a spherical cow), the rising minimum wage doesn't impact the equilibrium, it's just a new line. So whoever was on a equilibrium much above the minimum wage won't be affected ! Only the least paid jobs will be adjusted for inflation (when the minimum wage is over the equilibrium, or close to it)

Welcome to the bullsh!t.

It rose. Period. There is more inflation. That is what the .5% increase means. And yes, you are right, the WSJ just wants it to stop. Or shoudl I say Rupert Murdoch wants it to stop.

News Corp to cut 1,250 jobs after missing second-quarter estimates https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/09/news-corp-job-...

Rate of inflation growth is cooling. It’s a weird number that is always reported in a sort of strange way.

The fed is expected to go up to 5.25 and most of the market still expect that.

Reporting is always shit, you can't really trust the journalist or the editor that put the title to give you an accurate picture

Both are true, too

Inflation cooled, because Year over year in January is 6.4%, while in December it was 6.5% and in November it was 7.1%. So it has a downward trend

Inflation was 0.5% month over month in January, which was higher than the market expected 0.4%

The overall story is that inflation seems to be slowing down, but the market seems to think that the slowdown will happen quicker than it actually is, possibly making the Fed raise rates

Cooling doesn't mean dropping. It means less hot. If you take a lasagna out of the oven to cool but decide to cut in after only waiting a minute, it will still be too hot. The Fed is trying to keep your lasagna nice and warm after burning the last tray.

You need to wait till after 2PM.

No they didn't. They were all green, dropped to flat at 8:30am.

What wasn’t going to happen? The consensus was 6.2, this was well within expectations. It also showed inflation slowed.

This is frankly well inline with what most analysts thought was going to happen.